esr.org.nz

Engineers for Social Responsibility, Auckland Branch

Combined meeting with IET

Date and Time: Thursday 19 August 2010, 7.30pm

Venue: Room 3.407 School of Engineering, University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland.

Speakers: Philip Court and John Gorman

Abstract: Philip Court and John Gorman will speak about the advancement of their start-up, Greenstage Power, and the advantages of open source development software and methodology applied to the emerging smartgrid in New Zealand. With renewable energy becoming more viable and the Internet becoming increasingly pervasive, the two technologies converge with the SolarNetwork®, an open-source enterprise software platform commenced at the University of Auckland. Greenstage Power aims to leverage this open-source technology platform to provide a suit of energy and information services that the NZ smartgrid will consume, within an implicitly multi-stakeholder context. Inspiration for Greenstage Power comes from the open-source development approach to the problem of how electricity retailers, lines companies, SOEs, device manufacturers and electric vehicle providers can all participate and thrive in a marketplace that moves at the speed of the internet. Court and Gorman suggest that perhaps the most compelling aspect of open-source development is not that smartgrid technology will happen in NZ but that it is happening.

Philip Court is Managing Director of Greenstage Investments, and has been developing the GS750V, a high-performance electric racecar built with technology from the Tumanako open-source project. Philip has been a vocal proponent of electric vehicles not only for their superior performance and emissions but as a new component of grid stabilisation technology and as a catalyst for distributed generation.

John Gorman (ME Hons.) is a founder and director of SolarNetwork®, an enterprise-class open-source software platform focused on the capture, storage, visualization and analysis of real-time renewable energy data. SolarNetwork® won the Sharp Award for “Most Innovative Product or Service 2009” at the Sustainable Electricity Association of NZ conference that year,and serves as the foundation of Greenstage Power’s services.

Contact: John la Roche johnlaroche@xtra.co.nz